My Apocalypse:

I’ve been avoiding this blog for a while.  I know I said I’d be back, I just haven’t known exactly what to write.

Things are, over all, better.  There are inevitable kinks, of course, but those come and go.  Day-to-day, things are stabilizing. 

Tuesday, Jimmy and I met again to pray the Psalms like we’ve been doing almost every week for months now.  He offered Psalm 25 and I agreed, but my heart and mind were so far from present.  We read it, as usual, alternating back and forth and then, again as usual, we began to pray it.  I just couldn’t, though, so Jimmy prayed out loud and I wrestled with God for a while.

That day, that was distressing.  It bothered me that I wasn’t able to focus enough to vocalize a remotely meaningful prayer and I felt like I’d wasted time — Jimmy’s, God’s, mine.  Thinking back, I know for a fact that I prayed fervently; there just weren’t words that could express the internal struggle.

There is a situation in my life right now that echoes parts of my past.  It’s not something there’s any way out of at the moment, so I’m just going to keep walking forward, looking for the end, for the light.  Sometimes I get off track, sometimes it gets to me quite a bit. 

Even knowing (cognitively) that God knows all of these things, I don’t like to pray about them; I feel awkward and exposed and I flee from that feeling.

Now, I’m learning to embrace it somewhat.  I’m learning (though have not yet learned) to take them to him and give them over in some way.  Not wholly, not easily, not even consistently, but sometimes and as well as I can.  That’s what I did Tuesday afternoon, without really even realizing it.

So having realized that and having done that, I feel somewhat more prepared to take up my journey into openness again — this record in this little corner of the internet, writing it out and sharing with whomever yet cares to continue to read.

I’ve been kind of quiet here for a little over a week.  I haven’t forgotten this place — not at all — and I’m grateful for the comments, e-mails and other feedback.  I’m still thinking and in fact will soon, I hope, return to posting here.

I’ve made a commitment here to be as open as possible, so I’m about to talk about something I don’t usually talk about publicly, but it will explain, at least in part, why I’ve been quiet lately.  Openness is hard for me and, as you will probably see in a minute, there are reasons.

A few years ago, I was officially diagnosed with a condition I know I have experienced since at least the age of 3.  It’s what was formerly known as multiple personality disorder and now is called dissociative identity disorder or DID.  I am aware of the controversy surrounding the diagnosis, however, I have to trust that people who know me will know that it is genuine.  There are currently 17 personalities including myself and before last fall, there were 18.  One, Amanda, integrated  this past fall. 

I have been quiet because for the last 5 or 6 weeks, it seems that we are on the verge of another integration.  Hannah Grace believes that she is merging and I have to admit that I think so, too.  This kind of thing is actually very hard on me emotionally and even takes a physical toll.  I have trouble fully articulating my thoughts because who I am changes somewhat each time it happens and it takes some time to reassess and regroup.  I know this will likely not make much sense to anyone and I’m sorry.  I am having severe second thoughts about even posting this, but I do want to learn to be more open — even with things that I know will invite scorn, ridicule and disbelief from some.

Anyhow, this is where I am and what is going on.  I am still on my spiritual journey, but as I’ve said before, I cannot completely excise my psychological journey from it.  I just need time to regroup and incorporate these changes before I can continue to express here the things I want to.

I understand that this topic may make people uncomfortable and I respect that.  I don’t mind questions, but I also don’t want to feel like I have to defend my experience here.  If there is anything anyone would like to say or ask or whatever, I ask that it be done via e-mail.  My address is quiara at gmail dot com.  I don’t mind questions but if your intent is solely confrontation or flaming or outright attacks, etc., I ask that you not waste either of our time and simply keep it to yourself.  

Monday, during the time that Jimmy Adcox and I have been meeting to read Psalms, pray and talk, God showed up in a very non-cerebral way for me.  I’d chosen Psalm 130 (and another one which now slips my mind).  Psalm 130 is a "psalm of ascents."  It’s a psalm of prayer that cries out in agony, but hopes for the morning, certain that the Lord will redeem his people.  But, as much as I love that psalm, that’s not the one that was so moving to me that day.

Psalm 27:

1 The LORD is my light and my salvation—
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid?
2 When evil men advance against me
to devour my flesh, [a]
when my enemies and my foes attack me,
they will stumble and fall.

3 Though an army besiege me,
my heart will not fear;
though war break out against me,
even then will I be confident.

4 One thing I ask of the LORD,
this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
and to seek him in his temple.

5 For in the day of trouble
he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle
and set me high upon a rock.

6 Then my head will be exalted
above the enemies who surround me;
at his tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make music to the LORD.

7 Hear my voice when I call, O LORD;
be merciful to me and answer me.

8 My heart says of you, "Seek his [b] face!"
Your face, LORD, I will seek.

9 Do not hide your face from me,
do not turn your servant away in anger;
you have been my helper.
Do not reject me or forsake me,
O God my Savior.

10 Though my father and mother forsake me,
the LORD will receive me.

11 Teach me your way, O LORD;
lead me in a straight path
because of my oppressors.

12 Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes,
for false witnesses rise up against me,
breathing out violence.

13 I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.

14 Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD.

I’d had an emotionally trying weekend for various reasons, some of which maybe I’ll talk about here — and those are the emotions that were reflected in my choice of psalm.  I’d been praying it all week and it fit that weekend like a glove.  Jimmy had chosen Psalm 27.

We’d been through that one before.  This was a return.  He read it through once, slowly.  He read it again, pausing at various points with the intent that we would meditate and pray silently on the different sections.  Then he read it again, slowly, pausing again, but this time we prayed out loud, alternating.

I’ve said before that fear is a major problem for me.  I have typical fears for someone with a past like mine and I have a high startle response.  But more than that, I fear being open.  A lot of my past is shrouded in secrecy and darkness and it’s fighting against that that terrifies me but, in the end, is often one of the most freeing things I’ve ever done.

"Whom shall I fear?" 

"Of whom shall I be afraid?"

I’m afraid of people who, often, can’t hurt me anymore.  Some of them are dead, some live in other states.  Sometimes I fear shadows and memories and nightmares.  I fear the anxiety and the startle reflex.  I fear the depression, the flashbacks, the restlessness.  I’m afraid of ghosts — ghosts who can no longer touch me.

when my enemies and my foes attack me,
they will stumble and fall.

… but they didn’t.  Often, they still don’t.  At this point, the third time through, I began crying.  I’m not confident or strong or fearless or sure that my enemies can’t bring me down … because they HAVE. 

I want to believe that God will "keep me safe in his dwelling place," that he will "set me high upon a rock," that "my head will be exalted above the enemies that surround me…"  But it hasn’t been.  And so I find myself unable to believe it; I find myself asking, "Why?" when I really mean, "But where were YOU, God?"

But it’s verse ten that did me in.  I’d regained composure, but somehow I hadn’t heard that verse till the third time through.  "Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me."

At this point, it seemed that God himself was staring me in the face, saying, "I have been here, alongside you, crying and longing with you.   You are mine; you do not belong to those who have hurt you.  You are mine."

I am not a charismatic person in my faith.  I don’t often "feel" that I’ve encountered God.  I don’t often "feel prompted by the Spirit."  I tend to doubt my feelings and rely on the things I can see, observe — the logical, provable things.  I like to ground myself in logic because so much of my life has been illogical.  But at that moment, I leaned into that assurance.

I’ve always felt like the things that have happened have grabbed bits of me away from myself, leaving me broken and incomplete.  And probably I am.  But whatever I am, I am his.  Not theirs.

Even though we "walk by faith and not by sight," we can’t help that our physical, earthly eyes will continue to strain in the dark, confused and looking for light.

I have a huge post coming up soon about Psalm 27 and relational transparency.  Tonight, though, my head hurts and I’m tired. 

Veni, Sancte Spiritus,
et emitte caelitus
lucis tuae radium.

Veni, pater pauperum,
veni, dator munerum
veni, lumen cordium.

Consolator optime,
dulcis hospes animae,
dulce refrigerium.

In labore requies,
in aestu temperies
in fletu solatium.

O lux beatissima,
reple cordis intima
tuorum fidelium.

Sine tuo numine,
nihil est in homine,
nihil est innoxium.

Lava quod est sordidum,
riga quod est aridum,
sana quod est saucium.

Flecte quod est rigidum,
fove quod est frigidum,
rege quod est devium.

Da tuis fidelibus,
in te confidentibus,
sacrum septenarium.

Da virtutis meritum,
da salutis exitum,
da perenne gaudium, Amen, Alleluia.

I haven’t really talked about politics or the election.  That hasn’t been the focus of this journal.  But there are some things that I want to say:  Christians don’t all vote the same.  They don’t prioritize all "issues" the same.  They may not vote at all.  Christians, all of us, are trying to do our best to realize the kingdom of God in this world, in whatever ways we can.  For some, that’s abstaining from the political realm.  For others, it’s voting for greater social justice.  For others, it’s promoting their moralities.  All of us think we’re right and we all think we’re doing what Christ would do.

When discussing politics, I try to keep it in the realm of what the candidates are doing politically.  That’s all I can do.  I try not to attack them as persons, because despite the TV-imposed familiarity, I have to admit that I do not personally know any of the candidates.  The best I can do is to educate myself on their stances and vote accordingly, if at all.

I believe it is no sin for a Christian to be involved in the political process.  I also don’t believe it is sin for them to abstain.  I believe that each person should vote or not vote according to conscience and extend to others the same courtesy, assuming that they, too, have invested their minds and morals in the decisions they make.

I know at times I look like a liberal.  I even joke about being a part-time heretic.  My views are not all mainstream c of C, but my "liberalism" comes from my extremely conservative method of biblical exegesis.  I believe the word of God is active, alive, valid, relevant and true.  I assume my brothers and sisters do as well — even when I disagree with them.

We have to respect each other.  We will never all agree, but surely we don’t have to have a bloodbath over every detail, do we?

I’m reading a "blogalogue" between N. T. Wright and Bart Ehrman on the question of pain and God’s role in all of it — suffering, injustice, etc.  Erhman gives up his Christian faith because he is no longer able to believe that God is involved in his creation and that he will "right all wrongs" whether in heaven or some other manifestation of the afterlife.

Why do so many Christians believe that God will right all wrongs in the end?

God will never be able to take away the futility of lives lived without him, he will never be able to reform those who have committed the greatest evils in history and who are now gone from this earth. Sure, there is likely punishment in the life to come and I’m certain he can (and has) brought good from bad things — but at no point does he actually right those wrongs. He may balance them in one way or another (though sometimes that is debatable as well; who can say what amount of good "makes up for" a certain amount of evil, death and pain?) but he does not right the actual wrongs.

I think we do our faith a disservice by assuming that all things will wrap up neatly in the end. For us to believe in grace is inherently for us to believe in uneven scales and to trust the in UN"fair"ness of God. Isn’t it?

Over the last year or so, I’ve learned a lot about faith. I’ve learned that in order to learn about faith and in order to grow in faith, I’ve had to fight with faith — and fight with God.

I’ve learned to pray differently. I still pray for God to heal the sick, comfort the hurting, encourage the despairing and to bring about his will and manifest the kingdom of God. But I realize in that last part, the part about "your kingdom come, your will be done," I’m sometimes negating the first part. Not because I think God’s will is for people to be sick, hurting, alone or despairing, but rather because in a world full of sickness, hurt, loneliness and despair, God sometimes has to work through that in order to reach us.

In Disappointment with God, Philip Yancey explains this far better than I could. A God who answers prayers like fast food orders and appears in pillars of flame and columns of smoke at the drop of a hat isn’t a God who inspires faith and love in his people. More often, they grew to resent him or to take him for granted. But the question "why does God seem so often silent?" That’s a question that arises in the lives of most at some point. I’m sure it occurs to anyone who’s ever petitioned God for the life of a loved one, only to lose them anyhow. And when the hurt just wraps a cold hand around the heart, squeezing, sometimes the dying breath of faith is, "Where are you, God?"

Why doesn’t he reveal himself then? C. S. Lewis struggled, too, when he lost his wife, Joy. The silence of God was heavy and complex, and difficult, too, because so often when he’d not wanted God around, when he wished to be lord of his own life, God was persistent, insistant and omnipresent, at his elbow constantly. So this God who annoys us in our sin and arrogance, where is this same God who will not show himself when we are steeped in pain?

Questions like that get frowned at. I don’t understand why, though, when even Christ knew what it was like to sit shadowed in the silence of God and cried out, "Why have you forsaken me?"

Jesus came to be literally God with us. But he also came to become like us, fully human as well — to experience what it is to be thirsty, tired, sad, happy and if he would know all that, he must also know what it’s like to feel forsaken. We really do have a high priest who understands and intercedes.

Philip Yancey has already said that doubt isn’t the enemy of faith, fear is. And I think he’s right. Questions are only questions. It’s when we are too afraid to look for the answers, often because we don’t think we’ll like what we learn, that our faith begins to fail.

In order for God’s kingdom to become manifest in this world through his people, he constrains himself to the context of this world. How will we minister to the hurting if we’ve never felt pain? How can we love the ones who struggle if we’ve never struggled? And can any of us say we’ve never experienced the silence of God?

Sometimes I wonder if the state of our world, our lives, our souls — I wonder if sometimes it doesn’t simply strike God speechless.

"Half the walk is but retracing our steps."

– Henry David Thoreau

This quote is from an essay by Thoreau lamenting that people have become entrenched in society, that we have forgotten how to walk.  He talks about the failure of a modern walk to engender any sense of adventure or awe in the walker, tracing "saunter" back to the French root "Sainte Terre" pertaining to pilgrims seeking the Holy Land.  In our modern way of walking, we forget to seek Holy Land.

Thoreau was a devout naturalist and not much of a theologian and what I’ve done to this quote is the literary equivalent of proof-texting.  But what he’s said here has broader application, I think, and I hope he will forgive me in the life-to-come for lifting his words and investing them with new meaning.

I called this blog (though it’s really more of a journal to me) "My Apocalypse:  Journal of a Journey."  It’s my walk and, in part, the beginnings of sharing "my story."  Why on earth would someone call something an apocalypse — doesn’t that seem incredibly dark?  Well, I guess if you’ve bought into the theology of Left Behind then it is, but literally an apocalypse is a revealing, an unveiling.  That’s what I hope this is and will continue to be:  my revealing. 

I struggled with whether or not to share any of my story — and so far, I really haven’t.  I’ve shared some doubts, some fears, some sadness, some chaos, but most of it is still somewhere inside.  I struggle because people will see that I don’t appear to have come very far if they look on the surface.  I am 28 years old.  I struggle with depression that it has seen me in the hospital twice — people will see that in 2005 I was hospitalized and again last week.  Have I covered any new ground in 3 years?  I also live with my mother right now because I haven’t been able to reliably work or go to school due to physical and mental illness.  How is that progress over 5 years ago when I lived in my own apartment in another city, another state, working at a good job in a respected institution?  To many, it’s not.  To me, it’s worlds.

The 22/23 year old Quiara who set off 5 years ago into her "adult life" was unbearably insecure, emotionally needy and, more than anything, endlessly fearful of those around her and therefore very cut-off from others except in a superficial sense.  She (I) did not trust.

This person has always believed that if people knew her whole story, if they really knew her, it would be too much.  Too ugly, too bad, too depressing, too much — even for her God.  So she hid.

Today, I am learning the blessings of openness, of sharing the bumps in the road and the triumphs of the hilltops, I am dealing with my past, my present and working on my future — by taking one day at a time.  And while I wish it were different, half (or more) of my walk really is retracing my steps — but with a different outlook, a different approach, with the proper equipment, support and a map.

So while it may not seem that I have come very far, I really have.  But that really isn’t that important; even if I never progressed another step, I would be grateful for having made it this far. But the important part, the part I want you and others to hear, is that I’m still going.  I’m still walking.

 I’m still on the journey.

    I wish grace and healing were more abracadabra kinds of things; also, that delicate silver bells would ring to announce grace’s arrival. But no, it’s clog and slog and schootch, on the floor, in silence, in the dark.

–Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually)

Someone talked to me recently about the eventual possibility of sharing some of my "story."

I’m a great believer in the sharing of struggles and triumphs for building up others, encouraging people –  testifying (or is that taboo in the c’s of C?).  Israel, after all, thrived in times of darkness due to the stories of her fathers, the stories of God’s goodness throughout their trials.  Psalm 137 is heartbreaking:

 By the rivers of Babylon,
There we sat down and wept,
When we remembered Zion.
Upon the willows in the midst of it
We hung our harps.
For there our captors demanded of us songs,
And our tormentors mirth, saying,
"Sing us one of the songs of Zion."
4How can we sing the LORD’S song
In a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
May my right hand forget her skill.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
If I do not remember you,
If I do not exalt Jerusalem
Above my chief joy.
Remember, O LORD, against the sons of Edom
The day of Jerusalem,
Who said, "Raze it, raze it
To its very foundation."
daughter of Babylon, you devastated one,
How blessed will be the one who repays you
With the recompense with which you have repaid us.
How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones
Against the rock.

(NASB)

It’s a song of pain and captivity, of dwelling in the dark away from the hand and victories of God.  It’s violent and raw.  But embedded in it, there is hope — hope that God will reclaim them from their captors, a faith that he will redeem them despite their falling away. Israel told the stories in order to comfort and remind the faithful that God will preserve them for the sake of the covenant and for the sake of his Name.

But my story?

Here’s the thing:  I’m somewhere in the middle of my struggles — if I’ve even made it that far, and sometimes I doubt that.  Obviously I have not "attained;" I spent last week at the Funny Farm. (Which isn’t, by the way, all that funny…)  My story has no resolution.  It has no tidy conclusion.  I have not overcome and I am not particularly triumphant.  I am one who searches for the stories of others, looking for encouragement and reassurance that "this, too, shall pass." What merit can telling my unfinished, messy story have?

I thought about it for a while and then I thought about something else.  I watched TV, I read, I played with my dog.  I wrote.  Eventually, I opened my Bible and it became clear.

The Old Testament is the story of Israel, and if that’s not a story that at every point seems unfinished and full of chaos, I don’t know what is.  It’s dark, despairing, depressing quite often.  But even at that, the hand of God is all through it. 

It dawned on me that the work of God is redeeming, which my English degree tells me is a transitive verb, one that covers actions of the past, present and continues on into the future . . . indefinitely. Not a finished action. I’ve understood for a long time that salvation is not an event, but rather a process. But redemption (which is even broader) is as well. I and my story are being (in process of becoming) redeemed.

So, should the time arise for me to share part or even all of my story, although it scares me and although I feel vulnerable at even thinking about it, I will gladly do so — to show how God is bringing order to my chaos and redeeming the ugliness in my past, as well as to show what he has already accomplished, "being confident of this, that he who began a good work in [me] will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

I’m afraid of the dark.

By that, I don’t mean that I’m alarmed by the unilluminated evenings - though due to bits of my  history, there’s certainly that aspect to it.  But in a more general sense, I am fearful of the darkness that sometimes settles over my mind.

I mentioned I deal with a form of depression:  major depressive disorder (recurrent) — historically with psychotic features. In the past, I’ve described mental illness in terms of physical illnesses that people are typically more familiar with, or at least a little more comfortable with.  It’s not shameful, for instance, to have cancer — but schizophrenia is often a "family secret." If cancer is the body’s cells against itself, then mental illness is the body’s SELF against itself — if leukemia is a blood cancer, mental illness is, in many ways, a chemical cancer.

But that’s not what I want to write about right now.  Because the mental illness I have had the most (personal) experience with is depression.  Depression is darkness.

Depression warps reality in such a way that hope is drowned.  It worsens every time it occurs, the darkness gets deeper and the chaos gets louder, until the final defenses kick in:  the shutdown.

I am writing from my own experience, but also drawing on what I’ve heard from others who also deal with this disorder and those similar to it. 

My disorder is recurrent.  That means that it’s happened in the past and will, in all probability, happen again.  By "it," I mean the darkness.  Twice it has seen me on the other side of the locked ward of a mental hospital.  More times than that, it has seen me contemplating ending the life that I cannot, at the time, find value in.  (I am not going to talk about the theology of suicide.  That’s for another time.)

So I fear the darkness, the times when my rational mind flees to some space and refuses to speak to me, the time when the only voice I hear is the voice of my Accuser.  So what do I do?

Well, oddly enough, even as the darkness closed in most recently, my faith had been growing, a fire sprung from the not-yet-extinguished embers of the past.  And I remembered things. 

 You save the humble,
but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them low.

You are my lamp, O LORD;
the LORD turns my darkness into light.

With your help I can advance against a troop [a] ;
with my God I can scale a wall.

2 Samuel 22:28-30

And I remember:

 He reveals the deep things of darkness
and brings deep shadows into the light.

Job 12:22

I do not mean to say that a couple of verses take the place of my medication and therapy.  They help, though, in the dark times. Those verses are reassuring, but also terrifying.  He "brings deep shadows into the light"?  I don’t think I WANT my "deep shadows" exposed.  That makes me vulnerable, naked before my God and my fellow man.  And ashamed.

But why? 

Tonight, Jimmy spoke on brokenness.  We are, all of us, broken.  We are flawed.  We are human.  We all have dark places and dark times.  We all have them, but somehow we got the message that church is "not the place for that."  Instead it’s a nice social club that gets together a few times a week to strive for a common cause:  corporate, marketable Christianity. 

It’s not marketable, though, if we deny the humanity in all of us. The world doesn’t buy it.  That’s how the church got a reputation for hypocrisy — by denying our humanity, our darkness, weakness and failures.  We negate redemption if we claim perfection.

It is not our perfection that makes us the body of Christ, but rather our redeemed imperfections, our flaws, dark places, scars and ugliness — it is in this redeeming of the image of God that the miracle of God’s light is most clearly seen.

I dropped off the face of the earth unexpectedly.

Actually, I saw it coming and that’s kind of why I dropped out of Life As Lived.  I’ve written here before that mental illness is a part of my life, my journey, my struggle.  I deal with a clinical depression, specifically major depressive disorder (recurrent). 

April is a hard month for me.  I’ve written here about some of the reasons, but not all of them.  And I felt the darkness closing in - even, oddly enough, as my faith grew stronger.  There was chaos in my mind, but an odd peace in my spirit.  Until Tuesday, a very dark day on which I contemplated, sadly not for the first time, taking my life.

Having been at this point before, I could still think logically enough to know what I needed to do.  (Of course, it helped that Greg and Keith said it would be a good idea as well…)  I went for an intake assessment and Wednesday afternoon, I was hospitalized.  I came home today.

I have so much more to write about the last 5 days, but I am too tired to do it right now.  However, I am doing much better now and my medications have been adjusted sufficiently to offset my calendar and chemical woes. 

I am safe and in my right mind - at least as much as I’ve ever been - and I am stronger for my experience.  It’s not the first time I’ve been hospitalized.  The last time was April of 2005.  I didn’t want things to get as bad this time as they had that time, so I made the decision while some part of my rational mind still functioned and my best friend drove me to the hospital and checked me in, even as I recanted my intentions and asked her to take me home.  She is a good friend for not listening.

I am very tired, though, and going to bed now.

Why do we (and by "we," I mean protestants generally and c’s of C specifically) shy so hard away from the character of Mary?

I know the historical reasons even the theological reasons. But in an age where we are no longer "fighting" Catholicism in some grand schism and when an image of a chosen woman is no longer a threat (or is it?) why don’t we ever think about the one God used so powerfully?

Christ did not *have* to be born the same way we are. He could have been very like Athena and sprung forth, fully formed, from God’s forehead. But he didn’t. God chose to give him humanity and to have him born the same way we are. And I have to believe that he carefully considered whom he would use for that purpose. He had to choose someone who would accept the burden, who would be allowed to live when it was discovered she was pregnant before her marriage was consummated.

God didn’t do a haphazard job when he chose where his son would enter the creation. And while we focus on Joseph sometimes as his foster father, in a sense, Mary wasn’t his foster anything. She was his mother. There’s a whole theological tangle there, I guess, but that’s not what I’m so enamored of - I’m not trying to deify Mary. Even if she knew him to be the embodiment of God, he was her baby, too. Her first baby. Her son, too.

Like I said, I don’t want to deify Mary. I just want to get to know her, in a sense. In some ways, I feel like our heritage has stolen a hero from us by ignoring her. The woman God chose to use in possibly the most amazing way of anyone, ever - and we don’t even think about it much.

I was just thinking about it because I’d been talking with an Orthodox friend and reading Mary’s psalm, the Magnificat. I know those probably weren’t actually her words. Possibly an interpolation by a later writer. I don’t care, though, because they’re true to the nature of the character we’re given. And she was a Jewish girl. The way they echo Hannah’s words makes me think that something like them might well have been uttered by a poor Jewish girl who just found out she’s supposed to birth God incarnate. (And when you’ve been brought up in a faith that forbids the depiction of God, how much must your brain break to realize you’ll give birth to the literal image?)

I’d be terrified.

In the psalms, it’s easy to find things that echo what I feel right now. But I’m purposely making a decision to focus on psalms that celebrate God right now, psalms that praise him for his presence and his faithfulness - psalms that say things I want to believe.

I decided this because kind of in the same way I mentioned I just decided to accept the reality of the resurrection, I have a feeling I’m going to have to make a decision to accept the reality of the presence and faithfulness of God - even when I don’t see it. So I want to focus on the psalms that speak to that. The ones I’ve been praying lately are Psalm 61, Psalm 62, Psalm 51 and Psalm 91.

I chose those because I wanted to focus on the greatness and faithfulness of God, but also because I feel convicted. I have been hard-hearted. I know that it’s okay to ask why. And I know it’s even okay to basically call God to the floor (or "God in the dock," as C. S. Lewis would say). But there’s an aspect in which once you’ve called him out and he’s answered, he demands a response as well. And I’ve become increasingly aware of attitudes I’ve held that are not God-honoring. If I really desire the kind of relationship with God that I’ve said that I do, then there’s a response I have to make to him. I’ve been questioning God, challenging him. And I kind of feel like Job because I really believe that "God showed up." And like Job, like Isaiah, I understand that the only response to God’s self-revealing is to hit the ground, prostrate before him.

I want my life to be an acceptable offering.

I have 2 younger brothers, both of whom I love dearly.  I’m very close to my younger brother - we have a lot in common.

My youngest brother, though, is very different.  He doesn’t (currently) share our faith and doesn’t identify as a Christian.  But he has an amazing heart.  His passion is children.

Brandon is very smart and has a ton of talents.  He’s a gifted guitarist, an amazing singer, good with cars and anything even remotely mechanical and he has a wonderful sense of humor.

Today is his birthday.  Last year, when he should have been celebrating, he, too, was up at the hospital.  Last year on his birthday, dad had a stroke - the stroke that would kill him.

I’m praying this birthday is worlds better.  Today I celebrate the life of my baby brother.  I am thankful for his existence and his impact on my life.

Happy birthday, Brandon.

Ethan Powell died today.  He was a very small baby who fought leukemia and suffered a lot.  His family and many people who love them all are suffering today.  I wish I could change it, but I can’t.

Anything I say will sound off or be useless, so I’m going to share some lyrics instead that have helped me through several losses.

"Held," by Natalie Grant

Two months is too little.
They let him go.
They had no sudden healing.
To think that providence would
Take a child from his mother while she prays
Is appalling.

Who told us we’d be rescued?
What has changed and why should we be saved from nightmares?
We’re asking why this happens
To us who have died to live?
It’s unfair.

Chorus:
This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we’d be held.

This hand is bitterness.
We want to taste it, let the hatred numb our sorrow.
The wise hands opens slowly to lilies of the valley and tomorrow.

(Chorus)
This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we’d be held.

Bridge:
If hope is born of suffering.
If this is only the beginning.
Can we not wait for one hour watching for our Savior?

(Chorus)
This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we’d be held.

That’s what "we" call it in the churches of Christ.  It’s basically the act of expressing the desire to be recognized as a member of a local congregation.  That’s about all the "ceremony" there is to it. 

I’ve been in Jonesboro more than a year now and my first instinct was to go back to the church I’d considered my first church home, Bono.  But the over-arching theology of the congregation and my personal theology have continued to grow apart over the years.  I dearly love the people - they are family to me - but it’s not my home church anymore.

Sycamore View was a great experience for me.  I love the people and I was constantly inspired and amazed by the faith and love of our elders and their desire to be truly godly, faithful shepherds.  But I’m not there anymore.

I’ve always liked Southwest.  I just never saw it as home.  And, honestly,  until recently I haven’t been going to church very often in the last year, so I didn’t admit how important it is.

And I believe it is important.  It’s important to identify a congregation as home, as where you are committed to investing your talents to further the work of God with others who also call it home.  It’s important to find family because there’s only so much you can do by yourself.

Easter Sunday, I felt comfortable at Southwest and I realized how much I needed to identify with a local spiritual family.  How much I needed to plant roots and commit to a group of people and to the work of God in my area.  So that Sunday, a Sunday that had been fraught with loss in my mind, I placed membership and found family.

"Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not ‘So there is no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like.’"

"Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect you don’t understand."

"If God’s goodness is inconsistent with hurting us, then either God is not good or there is no God, for in the only life we know, He hurts us beyond our worst fears and beyond all we can imagine. If it is consistent with hurting us, then he may hurt us after death as unendurably as before it."

"Someone said, I believe, ‘God always geometrizes.’ Supposing the truth were, ‘God always vivisects’?"

"How do they know she is ‘at rest’? Why should the separation (if nothing else) which so agonizes the lover who is left behind be painless to the lover who departs? ‘Because she is in God’s hands.’ But if so, she was in God’s hands all the time and I have seen what they did to her here. Do they suddenly become gentler to us the moment we are out of the body?"

"Sometimes it is hard not to say ‘God forgive God.’ Sometimes it is hard to say so much. But if our faith is true, He didn’t. He crucified Him."

"The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness."

"The kinder and more conscientious [the surgeon] is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless."

"But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren’t."

"What do people mean when they say, ‘I am not afraid of God because I know He is good’? Have they never even been to a dentist?"

"The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just the time when God can’t give it: you are like the drowning man who can’t be helped because he clutches and grabs. Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear."

I’ve got at least 4 posts started on my computer.  They’re all things I want to say - but they’re not what I want to say right now.

This time of year is like a series of sucker punches.  My dad died on Easter, which has the gall to be a transient holiday - so he died on Easter, but last year, that fell on 4/8.  His birthday was also in April.  I am reminded on Easter.  I am reminded on the date of his death and I am reminded again, less than three weeks later, when he should be another year older. 

On Easter, regardless of when it falls, I am reminded that rather than celebrating the resurrection of my savior with my family of faith, I was sleeping after having been at the hospital very early that morning, arriving minutes after my dad died.

You hear stories about people who get there minutes too late, but you never believe you’ll be one of them.  I tell myself that it didn’t matter, really - my presence wouldn’t have aided or hindered his passing.  He’d had a stroke a few days before and I believe that his body lingered longer than did his spirit.  Usually I believe this.  But even that morning, when I got there and I knew he was dead, I held his hand for a long, long time.

My dad wasn’t there anymore, but I couldn’t let go.  I needed to hold onto his hand.  I thanked God that he wasn’t hurting physically any longer, but I hurt deeply.  I held his hand and whispered the things I wish I’d gotten to say.

I am lucky.  I got to say a lot of things to my dad and hear a lot of things from my dad before he died.  We knew his death was coming.  He’d been given a death sentence less than four years before when the doctors pronounced him terminal.  No, we didn’t know when, we just knew "soon."

I felt as though the bottom had been ripped out of my world when "soon" became "now." 

Why, at 27 years old, should my world be shredded by the loss of my imperfect, human father?  I can understand a small child being shaken to the core by the loss of a parent.  I don’t think adults are supposed to feel like this.

My dad and I were estranged in some ways.  There were hard feelings about some things that he’d done.  He hadn’t been around a lot when I was younger, either.  In some ways, I didn’t know him that well.  But I’d always considered myself a "daddy’s girl."

I don’t know why I am so shaken, why I am so sad, so angry, so hurt.

I know that it’s normal to be sad and to grieve a loss.  I just don’t know that I know how to do it "right."  There are so many conflicting emotions.

Sometimes I feel like I don’t have the "right" to be this sad because there are things I’m still mad at him about. 

But I miss him.  He wasn’t perfect and yes, I’m mad.  But I loved him and I needed him.  And sometimes I can still feel his hand.